America is all tapped out. It’s all been discovered, mined and otherwise done. Am I right?
Of course not. There are still many special places tucked away, especially in hard to reach corners of the West. Although few places feel as tucked as Wallowa County, Oregon. It is the northeastern most county in the state, about six and half hours from Portland. The Nez Perce loved this part of the county, and fought hard to keep it. Once you see the granitic Wallowa Mountains against the aching blue sky, it’s easy to see why.
As much as I wanted to see nature’s grandeur up close, I have to admit I was also curious about Terminal Gravity in Enterprise. Terminal Gravity is one of the finest brewers in Oregon, and in the nation, and it comes from a tiny town in a remote part of the state. Naturally, that gets the wheels spinning in more ways than one. What is this place where rivers and beers flow freely, I wanted to know.
I’m happy to report that Terminal Gravity is a friendly little spot. We sampled some of the seasonal beers that they do not bottle and then came back for dinner. I ordered seared Ahi tuna and a Double IPA. That’s the thing about small town Oregon, you can place that order and have every confidence that it will be delicious upon delivery.
The next morning, we drove a few more miles over to Joseph, Oregon and found the town to be even more charming than Enterprise. We visited Wallowa Lake and then settled in for a great breakfast at Old Town Cafe, before heading to Walla Walla for the rest of the weekend.
Walla Walla in southeast Washington is another off-the-beaten path destination, although it’s much more well known than Wallowa County, Oregon. It’s well known because the wine industry has exploded in the area over the last decade (it’s also home to Whitman College). The wine business is now a $100 million a year business in Walla Walla County and wine snobs and non-snobs alike are flocking to the little city from points near and far to quaff the local vino.
There are 108 tasting rooms in Walla Walla County and 140-plus bonded wineries. The historic downtown is literally jammed with tasting rooms, the airport industrial area has another 20-plus producers and then there are the estate wineries out in the country. I love to get a feel for the land where the grapes are grown, so we focused our visits on the estate wineries south of town on this first trip to the area. We were particularly impressed with Tertulia Cellars’ Cabernet Sauvignon. We also got into some serious Syrah over at Waters Winery and had a nice picnic on their picnic table. Dusted Valley is another producer south of town that’s well regarded and well worth visiting.
I’m starting a new email newsletter for paid subscribers. No, I have not gone mad, I’m merely inspired to pursue various strategies that pay me to write, edit and publish.
Why would you want to invite me into your inbox like this? And why would I bother to charge for the content and effort needed to create it?
My hope is you’ll invite me in and pay me to return again and again because you, like me, like to have a finger on the cultural pulse, a.k.a. the zeitgeist (and you want it served up in an easy-to-carry package that saves you time and the hassle of preparation).
As for the nerve it takes to charge you–even a token like my introductory rate of $1/month–I’m looking forward to the pressure the paid model creates. When you pay me, I owe you more and more kernels of meaning and wit. Simple as that.
My friend and personal ombudsman, Tom Asacker, advised me earlier this week to find what my audience on AdPulp.com is hungry for and feed them. We discussed some good ideas that are currently simmering before being plated. Perhaps I’ll create more paid newsletters that feed those hungers too, but I want to start here, with “Hungry for Gumbo,” because I’m more than a marketer who serves a highly defined audience hungry for one thing like steak, or fish, or whatever.
I’m a writer and I like gumbo, literally and figuratively.
Interestingly, the email format also lends itself to a more intimate relationship with readers. Email is digital content that can be shared/spread, but it’s provided in a private, one-on-one setting. In other words it can be a place for “loose talk,” in a way that a Web site with comments is not.
We rolled up on Methven Family Vineyards, south of Dayton, on this brisk, slightly wet Saturday to find an open but empty tasting room.
Will Kobyluck, General Manager, greeted us and poured us two whites and four reds, while sharing stories and generally extending a warm sense of hospitality.
All the wines at Methven are estate wines, which means the fruit is grown on the property. For me, tasting and learning about the wine while visiting the land where the grapes grow is an important part of understanding the vineyard’s terroir.
Darby and I purchased a 2007 Citizen’s Cuvee Pinot Noir and a 2006 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. Here I am trying to figure out the ’06 on camera, on the fly.
Correction: In the video, I gave the wrong price for the 2006 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. It’s $25, not $22. The 2007 Citizen’s Cuvee Pinot Noir is $22.
A group of filmmakers from Corvallis are in production on a documentary about Willamette Valley and Pacific Northwest winemakers.
Vino Veritas: An American Wine Movie is slated for release in 2012. But before that can happen, the team needs funding and they’re using Kickstarter and local events to reach out to fans of the project.
According to Gazette Times, David Baker, an Oregon State University employee in multimedia web production, and three filmmaking friends brainstormed this summer.
We want to focus on the local level, but we also want to make it national,†Baker said. “And we’re not just looking at the wine-makers. We’re focusing on the wine geeks and wine lovers, too.â€
Last Saturday, Darby and I had the extreme pleasure of finding our way to the heart of the Dundee Hills. After a quick stop at Dobbes Family Estate in town, we motored west and up the hill toward Domaine Drouhin, except we never found Domaine Drouhin. Instead we found De Ponte Cellars.
In winemaking, as in many things, location is crucial to the enterprise, and De Ponte Cellars is on “the hillside” that is home to several of Oregon’s top producers. De Ponte’s slice of this precious hillside is also home to one of the oldest vineyards in the Willamette Valley. This scenic property was acquired by the Baldwin family in 1999 and soon De Ponte Cellars Winery was born.
This special volcanic soil has excellent minerality and drainage. Also, the Dundee Hills benefits from being drier and warmer than many pockets that surround it. All of these factors together combine to showcase unique characteristics found in the best Pinot noirs from this region. Our wines tend to be very focused with great clarity and complexity. Some of the descriptors are bright red fruits, exotic spices, and a gorgeous minerality in the structure.
So, De Ponte has location, soil, climate and family on its side. De Ponte (pronounced Duh Pon Tay) also has winemaker Isabelle Dutartre. Dutartre learned the art of winemaking in the Burgundy region of France where she’s from, and each of her De Ponte vintages reflects her uncompromising commitment to quality and tradition. To learn more about Dutartre, see this video from Wine Is Serious Business.
I think it’s important to note that another one of “the hillside’s” best winemakers is also a woman–Anna Matzinger at Archery Summit. Pinot is a delicate grape and getting the pure essence of this delicate fruit in the bottle is an art and a science, one being mastered by women. But cheers to anyone who can do it well!
De Ponte also produces pinot noir under the Clay Hills label. We tasted the winery’s various offerings, and the 2008 Clay Hill Pinot Noir at $26 turned out to be the wine we were looking for.
See my iPhone picture of “the hill” in question on Flickr.
There are currently eight wine producers in Clark County, Washington. But none of them are familiar to the people of Oregon, because the Beaver State has its own wine industry with hundreds of producers to visit and support. Yet, the Vancouver-area wineries are easy to reach from Portland, and they tend to produce different varietals from their Oregon counterparts, making them a good option for a Saturday afternoon picnic.
Last fall we had a lovely afternoon at Rusty Grape in Battle Ground. Yesterday, we ventured to Confluence Winery, positioned on a high plateau above the Columbia River in Ridgefield. The property is home to maturing pinot noir vines, two horses, a production facility and tasting room, plus the lovely home of the proprietors, Jae and Greg Weber.
Confluence produces big bold Washington reds with fruit sourced from the Yakima Valley region, Horse Heaven Hills and Red Mountain, all in the south central part of the state. Darby and I tasted their Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Primitivo and a blend. The Syrah was excellent, but we were intrigued by the Primitivo, so we bought a bought a bottle and enjoyed it thoroughly it with our picnic lunch of olives, cheese, hot Genoa salami and crusty bread.
Originating from Croatia, the Primitivo grape has been grown in Italy for thousands of years. DNA testing now confirms that Primitivo is the exact same grape as Zinfandel, made popular by Californian wineries. The original Croatian name for this grape is Crljenak.
Weber told us his Primitivo fruit was planted from Italian vines and that the growing region in Washington is one of the best in the world for this particular grape. I believe it. At $32 for a bottle of Confluence’s 2008 vintage, this is a special wine that easily lives up to its price tag. The fruit is vibrant in this wine, but it’s balanced by a lingering velvet finish one might find in a powerful Cab.
Confluence wines are only available at the winery in Ridgefield. They do not supply any restaurants nor retail outlets at this time, so you’ll have to head north on I-5 and make your way to the western edge of Clark county. Be prepared to come home with a case, or as much as the Webers’ will sell you.
The title, “Evenstad’s Island,” clearly hints at what’s to come in the article. While the Willamette Valley winery puts out highly-rated wine, the owners, Ken and Grace Evenstad, suffer from a damaged reputation. They’re seen as wealthy hobbyists from Minnesota and are said to be totally removed from the local wine-producing community.
For instance:
“Ken and Grace have been quoted as saying they’re responsible for the entire wine industry and winemaking techniques going back to Jesus,” says Harry Peterson-Nedry, founder of nearby Chehalem Winery in Newberg. “And that’s probably not far from what they believe.â€
Indeed, both Ken and Grace Evenstad say that what differentiates their wines is unique methodology and an unusually high attention to detail. They insist on dry farming — meaning they do not use irrigation — because this method produces stronger tap roots and healthier vines. They also strive for a very low yield: around 1.78 tons of grapes per acre (the industry standard is 2 to 2.5). And they do 4-5 hand passes per year through the vineyard, green pruning, removing small clusters so the larger, robust ones have more space and food to grow.
Domaine Serene ferments each grape separately — not only according to the type but also by growing conditions such as elevation, direction and amount of sunlight — which means working with more than 200 individual Pinot Noir fermentations. Domain Serene also ages all its wines on-site for at least 15 months. According to the Evenstads, this combination of world-class winemaking practices was unprecedented when they arrived in the region 20 years ago. And they claim to have developed a unique system for making white wine (“Coeur Blancâ€) from mature red grapes. Others in the region scoff.
“This kind of wine was made by an Italian producer long before it was made by Domaine Serene,†says Ken Wright, the Evenstads’ original winemaker who worked with them for their first 10 years. “If you like, I can send you the link to prove it.†(He did, and it did.)
Sadly, the story doesn’t end there.
In September, the news broke that the Evenstads were suing Tony Rynders — the man who worked as their principal winemaker from 1998 to 2008 and created many of their most highly rated wines — for leaving their employ with proprietary information, especially pertaining to the methods for making Coeur Blanc.
Rynders would not comment because the case is still under way. But others in the community are avid to speak on Rynders’ behalf. Ken Wright, for instance. He insists the Evenstads’ lawsuit is simply a battle for power. “It’s typical of Ken and Grace,†Wright says. “Look at it this way. They just celebrated their 20th anniversary in business and nobody was there who helped them make wine for the past 20 years. I actually kind of feel for them.â€
Of course, the great irony here is that Domain Serene is well known outside the state for carrying the flag for Oregon pinot. “Only Oregonians want to strip them of their status,” notes Ann Bauer, the Seattle-based journalist who wrote the story.
I love to eat fish. Fresh fish, frozen fish, you name it. But the eco-conscious consumer in me wants to know which is better for me, and the environment.
According to Abby Haight of The Oregonian, frozen is better for the planet because it takes so much less energy to make it safely to your dinner plate.
“We said, ‘Eat wild salmon,'” said Astrid Scholz, vice president of knowledge systems at Ecotrust. “But it made me a little uneasy…. There’s something wrong about catching an Alaska salmon, putting it on a helicopter, and then putting it on a jet to Moscow and then to New York so someone can eat their $50 dinner of fresh Copper River salmon.”
Salmon that are flash-frozen at sea can be transported by freighter or train, which uses significantly less fossil fuel than jets. Troll-caught fish burn diesel fuel as ships chase fish across the seas. An Alaska salmon caught by a purse seiner, however, has a low carbon impact, Scholz said.
megnut and Ninecooks both have articles on cooking flash frozen fish.
Darby and I both had yesterday off, so we headed out to wine country to retrieve our two Collector’s Club magnums at Sokol Blosser. Given that Sokol Blosser is located deep in the heart of the Dundee Hills and surrounded by other excellent wineries, we decided to drop in on Tori Mor and Archery Summit, as well.
Tori Mor makes a respectable product, no doubt. But when the nectar served at Archery Summit hit our palates, we knew we’d left excellence at the gate for another realm where adjectives fear to dwell. Of course, that hasn’t stopped mortals from describing Archery Summit’s wines.
Wine Spectator says, “Archery Summit has established itself as the Rolls-Royce of Oregon Pinot Noir.”
Tamara Belgard of Sip With Me says, “I think they (Archery Summit) just might be the Princess Diana of Oregon Pinot Noir; elegant, graceful and classy yet still somehow strong, warm and approachable.”
Clearly, winemaker Anna Matzinger has two hands, her heart, mind and soul in this, along with the requisite volcanic soils and micro-climates where the grapes are grown.
Willamette Live says Matzinger is “unassuming for someone who just had her 2006 Red Hills Estate Pinot Noir named the best wine in Oregon by Portland Monthly Magazine.”
Here’s a passage from the Willamette Live piece:
Archery Summit uses the most sustainable and organic processes possible while producing their vintages.
Matzinger views pinot grapes as the ones best able to express the terrain on which they were grown. She prefers to get out of their way over fiddling with something that isn’t broken.
From the fermentation tanks, the wine flows down to settling tanks and then down again to one of the winery’s more than 600 barrels – all of which are stored in man-made tunnels excavated for the task of storing the wine at a constant temperature.
“We have a great facility, but its job is not messing up the fruit coming in from the field,” she said.
Sean in guest relations at the winery explained to us how Archery Summit prunes its vines by as much as one-half to maximize the flavor in the remaining fruit. This also helps explain the steep prices per bottle, as the winemaker is removing plenty of good fruit in order to pursue her annual masterpieces.
How Portland am I? I’m underemployed, a fixture at the dog park and I wear a hoody. Plus I love micros, local pinot noir and dining at the city’s premier food carts. It’s this last bit I’d like to tell you more about.
Gourmet Magazine recently profiled eight of Portland’s not-to-miss carts, and I’ve enjoyed two of them this week (and it’s only Wednesday).
To me, dining out is partly about the adventure. If the restaurant or food cart serves ethnic food, I want to travel to that far away land, edibly speaking. Cora y Huichol Taqueria on SE 82nd and Holgate really delivers in the transport department. It’s a short journey down SE 82nd, but when you arrive at this concrete corner and eat the dishes made by skilled and caring ladies, you’re no longer in Portland at all.
Marissa Robinson-Textor, writing for Gourmet, says:
the moment you taste the Nayarit and Jalisco specialties at this little white truck, you’ll be riding the waves with the best of them. In a city brimming with quality Mexican food, items like tacos al pastor certainly hold their own, but it’s the seafood dishes—a tangy, spicy “ceviche†and tostadas de camaron—that will hook, line, and sinker you.
I ordered two ceviche tostadas and lightly decorated them with salsa habanera. I’m always on the hunt for good ceviche and it is an elusive dish, indeed. But now I know who in Portland has their ceviche game together. The tostadas were filled to the brim with a shrimp and octopus (I think) mixture, drowning in lime juice. The shrimp was perfectly marinated, and the tostadas were thick enough to handle the generous toppings.
I can’t wait to return to try some other items from Cora y Huichol Taqueria. I’m thinking a torta might be my next call when I’m out that way again.
